New year, new hope for accountability

Now that 2018 has taken its first breaths, it is time to buckle up for a tumultuous year in politics. At month’s end, the House of Commons returns and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally will be put in the pillory to suffer humiliating opposition taunts as a result of his ethics violations.

His convictions by outgoing Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson — while delivered late last year without the subsequent pain of monetary penalty — nonetheless make Trudeau the first PM in our 150 years to be found guilty of ethics breaches. He is Canada’s not-so-artful dodger. Trudeau believed he was above it all, better than the rest of us, more privileged than others, and his reputation is forever tainted.

It looks good on him. Maybe now he will curb his arrogance and his sense of entitlement, and try to learn what it is like to be an average middle-class Canadian trying to make ends meet while being looked upon by Liberals as nothing more than a “revenue tool.”

But this is probably asking too much.

There is still another year-plus to go before Albertans go to the polls to rid themselves of Rachel Notley’s NDP, and restore some conservative sanity with Jason’s Kenney’s United Conservative Party.

Unlike previous leaders of the old Conservative Party of Alberta, Kenney is a solid conservative on the fiscal front, which is precisely what Albertans need to undo the Notley mess.

This will be the year for Kenney to set it up and few are better political organizers than Kenney. In Ontario, nothing could be more important than bringing an end to the most politically corrupt provincial government ever to stain the Ontario legislature by voting for the total elimination of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals.

During their 13 years in power, they have destroyed what was once the “economic engine” of Canada, turned it into a have-not province, and through a litany of boondoggles have crippled taxpayers with debt so deep it will take until the middle of this century to crawl out from under it.

They are a despicable lot in need of banishment.

This cannot be over-emphasized.